American investors: Predictably stupid losers

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- Yes, I am mad as hell again. Wall Street's soulless, immoral, greedy bankers really believe that the vast majority of America's 95 million investors are not only "predictably irrational" but "stupid," as J.P. Morgan Chase's chief investment officer put it in Forbes a while back.

Worse, Main Street investors are losers for continuing to trust Wall Street after they lost 20% of our retirement money the last decade. Now, worst of all, Wall Street's traders have profiled Main Street investors in their algorithms: Yes, investors are "predictably stupid losers," what Vegas croupiers call a mark, a dumb gambler that can be easily conned out of his money.

Why so blunt? Listen: Recently I explained why the Wall Street banks must kill financial reform, to preserve their multibillion dollar bonus pool. One reader commented: "I worked at the Bear Sterns ... every word written here is true. Fact is, bankers regard themselves as wolves and the public as prey, and speak about it openly, among themselves." Then he added a sucker punch: "What is extraordinary to me is how willingly the sheep submit to this."

Yes, folks, Wall Street is certain that America's 95 million investors are clueless sheep headed for the slaughterhouse.

But wait, that's not news. Twenty years ago former bond trader Michael Lewis' "Liar's Poker" described the insanity of our addiction to gambling in a few memorable lines: "Men on the trading floor may not have been to school but they have Ph.D.s in man's ignorance." They know that "in any market, as in any poker game, there is a fool. The astute investor Warren Buffett is fond of saying that any player unaware of the fool in the market probably is the fool in the market."

And as we now know, in the stock market the vast majority of America's 95 million investors are fools -- predictably stupid losers.

Lewis says traders instinctively know that "the larger the number of people" chasing a trend, "the easier it was for them to delude themselves that what they were doing must be smart. The first thing you learn on the trading floor is that when large numbers of people are after the same commodity, be it a stock, a bond, or a job, the commodity quickly becomes overvalued," making it easy for traders to generate hundred-million-dollar-profit days.

Too blunt? Sorry but that's exactly how Wall Street sees you

Are we too harsh, folks? Sorry for lumping you readers in with the rest of Main Street's 95 million predictably stupid losers. But what else could a rational person conclude?

So you ask: What triggered this rant? Simple: A new book, "The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defining Logic at Work and at Home," by Dan Ariely, the brilliant Duke University behavioral economist who earlier wrote the one book whose title alone tells you all you'll ever need to know about behavioral economics. Answer: You are "Predictably Irrational." Period.

I feel sorry for all books on behavioral economics. Why? Because most are written by brilliant academicians and top journalists, not callous, greedy Wall Street traders who'd never divulge their secrets. But that's no excuse: These books are all filled with misleading pop-psychology nonsense based on a simple premise: That if you just buy these books and apply their advice, you can change the way you think, become less irrational and be a better investor, even beat Wall Street. Wrong.

Never read another behavioral economics book ... ever

Here's a partial list of popular behavioral economics books you should never waste time reading. They're also based on that same misleading assumption that you can make your brain less irrational and win at Wall Street's casino. Never happen in a million years. Never.

Wall Street's already programmed your psychological profile into their trading algorithms. They're light-years ahead of you, misleading you into their slaughterhouses and casinos. Here's the list of the popular books no investor should ever read:

"Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Markets and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism"

"Your Money & Your Brain: How the New Science of Neuroeconomics can Help Make You Rich"

"Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes, And How to Correct Them: Lessons From the New Science of Behavioral Economics"

Why such a strong warning? Remember, all these books were built on the original research of Daniel Kahneman who won the 2002 Nobel Economics Prize for his work in behavioral economics. Moreover, all of them were published before Wall Street's meltdown a couple years ago. And still Main Street investors lost trillions of retirement money.

Get it? Reading books on behavioral economics not only didn't help, it probably gave you a false sense of security that made you even more vulnerable to Wall Street's deceptive con game ... and given their current $400 million lobbying efforts to kill reforms, you can bet another meltdown is destined to happen again, soon.

Admit it, investors are sheep, fools, predictably stupid losers

So what's the only thing you need to know about behavioral economics? Begin with the fact that you are predictably irrational. Your brain is not only irrational, your behavior is easily predicted. You can be manipulated without ever knowing it. Wall Street knows your brain is your worst enemy, that 88% of your behavior is driven by the subconscious, biases you cannot change. The fact is, Wall Street does not want intelligent investors who think.

So read all you want, see all the shrinks you want, trade all you want, nothing will save you. Wall Street already has your profile in their trading algorithms. They'll always be light-years ahead of you.

And finally, in spite of all their claims of professionalism, neuroeconomists, perhaps more than other economists, are political animals. As Bloomberg BusinessWeek put it, "the rap on economists, only somewhat exaggerated, is that they are overconfident, unrealistic and political. They claim a precision that neither their raw material nor their skill warrants. Too many assume that people behave like the mythical homo economicus, who is hyperrational and omniscient."

The fact is, neuroeconomists are political mercenaries-for-hire who can "prove" any scenario, neoKeynesian or Reaganomics.

Worse, our political leaders are becoming predictably stupid losers

Political animals? You bet. Reminds me of Alan Greenspan's congressional testimony admitting that the Reaganomics free market trickle-down economics failed America: Greenspan admitted he made a "mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and equity."

There was "a flaw in the model ... that defines how the world works," said Greenspan. "Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders' equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief," he told Congress. Unregulated markets "held sway for decades" ... then "the whole intellectual edifice, however, collapsed."

And it'll get worse, thanks to Bernanke, Obama and Goldman's lobbyists. Greenspan's deeply flawed Reaganomics remains anchored deep in America's brain and DNA. So every promise made in every behavioral-economics book ever written about the principles originally defined by Kahneman will continue to mislead America's 95 million Main Street investors ... and fail.

Why? Because the insatiable greed driving the Goldman Conspiracy of Wall Street banks is so addictive, so powerful, so overwhelming, so much in control of the political process that nothing, absolutely nothing, can change the next inevitable mega-crash dead ahead.

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